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The Tip.It Times

22nd March 2009Issue 2099gp

Lock and Loathe

Written by Ts_Stormrage and edited by Tip.It

Over the years, it has become quite apparent that RuneScape has offered a multitude of paths to play the game. Each and every kind of player has at least one area that they will always try to better themselves in. You got your Questers, your skillers, your PVP-ers, your minigame fanatics, you name it.

And unfortunately, there are people out there who always seem to find something to complain about, even while still enjoying the rest of game. I have touched on this in the past with my article "The Coal in our Stockings", but since then I have noticed something that prompted me to dig a little deeper.

We've all desired a certain item to be added, an agility short-cut implemented, a Quest-line continued, or, like the lion share of the crowd, the Grand Exchange rules relaxed. Hell, I'll admit that I've been waiting for too long for the weapons that can auto-cast Flames of Zamorak.

That is kind of the case I'm trying to make. Everyone who has something to complain about, will, nine out of ten times, keep complaining about that one thing until it's fixed. If you examine yourself really hard, you might find that this holds true for you, even outside of the game.

Rarely are these complaints justified, though. A well known complaint is the "spawn-stealer". In my opinion, if you're using a Rune Halberd, or get attacked by aggressive Baby Blue Dragons, what on earth are you doing down there. The same can be said for a variety of monsters in the Slayer Tower, and can range from Aviansies to the ones bringing a Cannon to Dagannoths. Finding an empty Bandos room on a loot-share world on a Saturday evening will often force you to do the same. And don’t forget the skilling spawns; Chinchompa hunting, any F2P mining spot, stall and chest thieving, you name it.

But no matter your argument for trying to prevent your spawn from being stolen, it simply comes down to you not being good enough or fast enough to keep it.

A similar focus rests on the complaint of how the game is too "luck based", combined with the arguments on how the Ring of Wealth is helping or not. Personally I do not believe in luck, as you cannot program true randomness without hooking your server up to a Geiger-counter. To prove my point; How many of you have successfully cooked their very first piece of raw shrimp on Tutorial Island? And knowing all the facts, people still can't agree.

Another Golden oldie is of course widespread unhappiness with the economy. It is now very easy for me to draw a parallel between the way the GE restricts (regulates) price fluctuations, and the real world economy. Especially in the United States, there have been very little of such restrictions, and the disaster this has led to is pretty obvious. Just imagine what price manipulators could do to the price of your desired items if they had 10% price range instead of 5%. If you need proof, just look at the graphs of Rune Axes, Rune Gauntlets and Cut Diamonds.

Oh and, no, some items will never go back to their original price again. A good example is Gold Ore, which has dropped below 500gp per piece since people are hammering Adamant Plate-bodies with their Sacred Clay Hammers. If an update happens, your items could have their 'standard' value adjusted.

And finally, subjects of near constant complaints are the updates to the game, and lack thereof. I'll take "The Chosen Commander" as an example, but not to worry, I will not reveal the plotline.

One of the rewards upon completion of the Quest is access to a new Agility Course which was short, easy, and gave a tremendous amount of Agility, Strength and Range XP. People were happy with it, because it was, despite the high fall rate, better than the course on Ape Atoll. Moreover, it had finally put something in Dorgesh-Kaan that would have people return more often to the city (seriously, we have two vast underground cities barely visited). Still people complained, because the requirements for this course were a lot lower than the ones you gained less XP.

Long story short; it got 'nerfed' and unsurprisingly, people complained again. Not only about the loss of a good Agility Course, but also about the fact that "Jagex can't get anything right the first time". Personally I'm glad they get the easily fixable stuff wrong, and the hard stuff like, another 6-6-6 happening again, right.

Fortunately, the four major categories of grievances I described appear to be unfounded. I'm quite sure that if you had to assemble your own top10 of Jagex' to-do list, a few of these would find their way on there. So for now, I will settle with borrowing a quote from Jon Stewart; "I like my complainers like I like my soda… Classic, and gassy."

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